|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 12
But the day has risen, and the sun with it. As I leave the shore in the
Vice-Admiral's boat, the sunlight comes dancing over a low line of hill,
lighting up the harbour, the mighty ships, with their guns, and, scattered
out to sea along the distance, the destroyers, the trawlers, the
mine-sweepers, the small auxiliary craft of all kinds--those "fringes of
the fleet"--which Kipling has caught and photographed as none but he can.
The barge stops beside the Flag-ship, and the Admiral descends into it.
What is the stamp, the peculiar stamp that these naval men bear?--as of a
force trained and disciplined to its utmost capacity, and then held
lightly in check--till wanted. You see it in so many of their faces, even
in eyes hollow for want of sleep. It is always there--the same strength,
the same self-control, the same humanity. Is it produced by the testing
weight of responsibility, the silent sense of ever-present danger, both
from the forces of nature and the enmity of man, the high, scientific
training, and last but not least, that marvellous comradeship of the Navy,
whether between officer and officer, or between officers and men, which
is constantly present indeed in the Army, but is necessarily closer and
more intimate here, in the confined world of the ship, where all live
together day after day, and week after week, and where--if disaster
comes--all may perish together?
But on this bright winter morning, as we pass under and round the ships,
and the Admiral points out what a landswoman can understand, in the
equipment and the power of these famous monsters with their pointing guns,
there was for the moment no thought of the perils of the Navy, but only of
the glory of it. And afterwards in the Admiral's pleasant drawing-room on
board the Flag-ship, with its gathering of naval officers, Admirals,
Captains, Commanders, how good the talk was! Not a shade of boasting--no
mere abuse of Germany--rather a quiet regret for the days when German and
English naval men were friends throughout the harbours of the world. "Von
Spee was a very good fellow--I knew him well--and his two sons who went
down with him," says an Admiral gently. "I was at Kiel the month before
the war. I _know_ that many of their men must loathe the work they are set
to do." "The point is," says a younger man, broad--shouldered, with the
strong face of a leader, "that they are always fouling the seas, and we
are always cleaning them up. Let the neutrals understand that! It is not
we who strew the open waters with mines for the slaughter of any passing
ship, and then call it 'maintaining the freedom of the seas.' And as to
their general strategy, their Higher Command--" he throws back his head
with a quiet laugh--and I listen to a rapid sketch of what the Germans
_might_ have done, have never done, and what it is now much too late to
do, which I will not repeat.
Type after type comes back to me:--the courteous Flag-Lieutenant, who is
always looking after his Admiral, whether in these brief harbour rests, or
in the clash and darkness of the high seas--the Lieutenant-Commanders
whose destroyers are the watch-dogs, the ceaseless protectors, no less
than the eyes and ears of the Fleet--the Flag-Captain, who takes me
through the great ship, with his vigilant, spare face, and his
understanding, kindly talk about his men; many of whom on this Thursday
afternoon--the quasi half-holiday of the Fleet when in harbour--are
snatching an hour's sleep when and where they can. That sleep-abstinence
of the Navy--sleep, controlled, measured out, reduced to a bare minimum,
among thousands of men, that we on shore may sleep our fill--look at the
signs of it, in the eyes both of these officers, and of the sailors
crowding the "liberty" boats, which are just bringing them back from their
short two hours' leave on shore!
Another gathering, in the Captain's room, for tea. The talk turns on a
certain popular play dealing with naval life, and a Commander describes
how the manuscript of it had been brought to him, and how he had revelled
in the cutting out of all the sentimentalisms. Two men in the
play--friends--going into action--shake hands with each other "with tears
in their eyes." A shout of derisive laughter goes up from the tea-table.
But they admit "talking shop" off duty. "That's the difference between us
and the Army." And what shop it is! I listen to two young officers, both
commanding destroyers, describing--one, his adventures in dirty weather
the night before, on patrol duty. "My hat, I thought one moment the ship
was on the rocks! You couldn't see a yard for the snow--and the
sea--_beastly_!" The other had been on one of Admiral Hood's monitors,
when they suddenly loomed out of the mist on the Belgian coast, and the
German army marching along the coast road to Dunkirk and Calais marched no
more, but lay in broken fragments behind the dunes, or any shelter
available, till the flooding of the dikes farther south completed the
hopeless defeat which Admiral Hood's guns had begun.
Then the talk ranges round the blockade, the difficulties and dangers of
patrol work, the complaints of neutrals. "America should understand us.
Their blockade hit us hard enough in the Civil War. And we are fighting
for their ideals no less than our own. When has our naval supremacy ever
hurt them? Mayn't they be glad of it some day? What about a fellow called
Monroe!"--so it runs. Then its tone changes insensibly. From a few words
dropped I realise with a start where these pleasantly chatting men had
probably been only two or three days before, where they would probably be
again on the morrow. Some one opens a map, and I listen to talk which, in
spite of its official reticence, throws many a light on the vast range of
England's naval power, and the number of her ships. "Will _they_ come out?
When will they come out?" The question runs round the group. Some one
tells a story of a German naval prisoner taken not long ago in the North
Sea, and of his remark to his captors: "Yes, we're beaten--we know
that--but we'll make it _hell_ for you before we give in!"
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|